ANALYSING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DEMOCRACY AND

DEVELOPMENT: DEFINING BASIC CONCEPTS AND ASSESSING KEY

LINKAGES

Background note (1) prepared for the Wilton Park Conference on Democracy and
Development, 23-25 October 2007

Alina Rocha Menocal (ODI)*

I. Introduction
This brief Background Note seeks to analyse the complex relationship between democracy
and development, a question that has preoccupied academics and policymakers alike for
several decades. Section II begins by defining basic concepts, including democracy in
minimalist and more substantive terms, and development. It also highlights the importance
of democracy as a process and development as an outcome. The Note then goes on to assess
some key (causal) linkages between democracy and development in Section III, discussing
in particular modernisation theory and the emergence of democracy; the argument that
democracy is a (pre)requisite for development, and the opposite argument that in fact
authoritarian regimes are better at promoting development. This section also looks at some
of the challenges posed by emerging democracies and proposes taking a new look at
modernisation theory for some insights. Section IV concludes by summarising a few key
texts in the literature, which in the aggregate point to the fact that the evidence linking
democracy and development in one way or the other remains inconclusive and highly
contested. On this basis, the Note highlights the intrinsic value of the democratic process,
while also noting that the expectations placed on (emerging) democracies to generate
development outcomes need to be tempered. The Note ends by suggesting that, when
thinking about democracy and development, it is essential to ‘bring the state back in’, and
that the international community needs to think about how the different goals it seeks to
pursue interact and to grapple more seriously with the ensuing tensions.

II. Defining basic concepts

1) Democracy: minimalist definitions

At its most basic level, a democratic system can be defined in procedural terms as ‘that
institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the
power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote’ (Schumpeter
1942). Expanding on this definition, Dahl (1971) identifies seven key criteria that are
essential for democracy, or what he prefers to refer to as ‘polyarchy’. These include:

• Control over governmental decisions about policy constitutionally vested in elected

officials

*
I am very grateful to Bhavna Sharma (ODI) for her research assistance on different elements of this
Background Note, as well as to John Gaventa (IDS) for his comments and feedback on an earlier version. This
paper also draws on work that I have undertaken with both Verena Fritz (ODI) and Liz Rakner (CMI).
• Relatively frequent, fair and free elections
• Universal adult suffrage
• The right to run for public office
• Freedom of expression
• Access to alternative sources of information that are not monopolised by either the
government or any other single group
• Freedom of association (i.e. the right to form and join autonomous associations such as
political parties, interest groups, etc).

While still minimalist, Dahl’s definition of formal democracy includes the basic civil
liberties that should, in principle, guarantee that the democratic process is inclusive, free of
repression and enables citizens to participate in an informed and autonomous manner.
However, the focus of this definition, is still on contestation, or the electoral process itself.
For a long time, the international community has also tended to place tremendous faith in the
determinative importance of elections and what they can achieve for the democratisation
process – there is an implicit assumption that ‘elections will be not just a foundation stone
but a key generator over time of further democratic reforms’ (Carothers 2002).

2) Democracy: more substantive definitions

On the other hand, as has become increasingly clear with the emergence of new democracies
in many regions of the developing world since the 1980s, the process of democratisation
entails not only a transition to formal democracy, but also the consolidation of such a
democratic system. As analysts have found, relying on a minimalist definition of democracy
cannot quite capture the challenges besetting regimes that have undergone a transition but
have yet to consolidate their incipient democratic structures.1 As a result, a growing number
of democratisation experts is turning towards a more substantive definition of democracy,
one that gives greater prominence to the role and importance of accountability.

Three dimensions of accountability are usually distinguished:2 (i) vertical accountability,

which enables citizens to hold their political leaders to account through the electoral channel
at specified points in time; (ii) horizontal accountability, which refers to accountability
mechanisms that exist within the distinct bodies of government itself, whereby state
institutions are authorised and willing to oversee, control, redress and, if need be, sanction
unlawful actions by other state institutions (O’Donnell 1996); and (iii) societal
accountability, which refers to the (ongoing) watchdog functions of civic associations, other
NGOs and an independent mass media over the actions of the state (Schedler et al. 1999).

This model of a liberal representative democracy – based on a free and fair electoral process,
the respect of basic civil and political rights, and the provision of accountability mechanisms
essential to give democracy substance – has gained growing international currency over the
past two decades (see for example Bardhan nd; Diamond 2003; and Leftwich 2005). As
Amartya Sen (1999a) has argued, democracy thus understood has become a ‘universal
value’. A leading example of this emerging international consensus is provided by the
Community of Democracies (CD). Through its Warsaw Declaration and subsequent
statements, the CD is the first intergovernmental organisation of established democracies and

1
For a more detailed overview of the challenges confronting these emerging or incipient democracies, please
see the Background Note on ‘Hybrid Regimes and the Challenges of Deepening and Sustaining Democracy in
Developing Countries’ that has been prepared for this conference as well.
2
The debate on what constitutes an accountability relationship is ongoing. Some analysts include external
accountability as a fourth form of democratic accountability. For overviews of the theoretical debates, see
Mainwaring and Welna (2003) and Goetz and Jenkins (2005).

2
democratising countries that has sought to define and assess what a democracy is (very much
along the lines suggested above), as well as to ‘work together to support and deepen [it]
where it exists, and to defend it where threatened’ (Boucher 2000), although its
proclamations are non-biding.3

On the other hand, this liberal notion of democracy has been criticised in certain circles as
being too elitist, stressing that aspects of participation are neglected (Pateman 1970;
Chambers 1996). These other debates about more substantive democracy therefore put much
more emphasis on inclusionary, deliberative, and participatory processes. As John Gaventa
(2006) has put it, the ‘deepening democracy’ strand of the democracy debate ‘focuses on the
political project of developing and sustaining more substantive and empowered citizen
participation in the political process than what is normally found in liberal representative
democracy alone’. Though far from perfect, the constitutions of both post-authoritarian
Brazil and post-apartheid South Africa offer examples of deliberate attempts at more
substantive and participatory democratic governance (including provisions for participatory
budgeting, for instance).

3) Democracy and development: outlining the terms of the relationship

Few questions in comparative politics and development studies and policy have generated as
much debate and scholarship as that exploring the relationship between democracy and
development. The positive correlation between (high levels of) wealth and (established)
democracy, first captured by Martin Lipset in his famous 1959 essay ‘Some Social
Requisites of Democracy’, is one of the strongest and most enduring relationships in the
social sciences. In fact, a democratic regime has never fallen after a certain income level is
reached ($ 6,055 per capita in PENN World Table dollars) (Przeworski et al. 2000).4
However, as strong as this correlation is, it does not mean causation, and so for a very long
time academics, development analysts and policy makers alike have been preoccupied with
untangling the complex relationship between development and democracy and determining
whether there is a causal link between the two.

Much of the answer to the question about the links between democracy and development
will of course depend on how one defines ‘development’. If one follows Sen (1999b) and
adopts a definition of development as ‘freedom’ – a suitably broad definition that
incorporates not only economic indicators but also freedoms like human and political rights,
social opportunities, transparency guarantees and protective security, then by definition
democracy must lead to development. In addition, recent debates on a rights-based approach
to development also focus on participation, accountability, and other elements that are very
similar to those values underlying substantive forms of democracy (e.g. UNDP 2000).
However, while there is enormous value in understanding development in such a holistic
way, such an approach poses conceptual problems. Defining development in terms of many
of the attributes inherent to democracy (including rights and accountability) makes it more
difficult analytically to make a distinction between the two terms and to be able to (or at
least attempt to) disentangle the nature of the relationship between them. For this reason, it
may be useful to adopt a somewhat narrower definition of development. Following Joseph
Stiglitz (2003), development for the purposes of this Note is understood as a ‘transformation
of society’ that goes beyond economic growth alone to include social dimensions like
literacy, distribution of income, life expectancy, etc. – the variables captured in the UNDP’s

3
For more information on the Community of Democracies and the Warsaw Declaration, see
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/c10790.htm
4
On the other hand, dictatorships follow a more capricious pattern: they can survive in both very poor (less
than $ 1000 per capita a year in PENN World Table dollar) and very rich (more than $ 7000) countries.

3
human development index. In addition, development must include some dimension of the
(re)distribution of wealth as well (Leftwich 2005).

There is also a debate on whether ‘real’ democracy can only be said to be achieved in those
political regimes that foster development, economic equality and social justice.5 But as many
analysts have noted (e.g. Schmitter and Karl 1996), there is nothing inherent in the nature of
a democratic system that should automatically lead to certain outcomes. Such a maximalist
understanding of democracy may in fact risk overburdening the concept, and it places
unrealistic expectations and/or demands on what democratic regimes should achieve by
sheer virtue of being democracies. The distinction between state and regime type is central to
this debate. A key function of the state is to promote economic growth and deliver
developmental outcomes. Regime type refers to the form of government and the way
decisions are made.

This Note opts for a definition of democracy (as outlined above) that focuses on process
rather than outcome: a democracy should not be expected to produce better socio-economic
outcomes simply because it is a democracy. As Sen (1999a) and many other have argued, the
democratic process does have intrinsic value on its own right, and it should be expected to
arrive at policy decisions in a way that is inclusive, participatory, broadly representative of
different societal interests, transparent, and accountable. In particular, following the Sen
tradition, the importance of participation in one’s development through open and non-
discriminatory democratic processes is fundamental.

Once the intrinsic value of democracy has been established, however, it is still very much
worth asking the ‘so what’ question: does democracy make a difference, and if so, what kind
of difference? The growing recognition of institutions as key factors in shaping
(developmental) outcomes (e.g. Commission for Africa 2005; Fritz and Rocha Menocal
2006 and 2007) and the movement of more poor countries toward democracy have both
sharpened the relevance and the stakes of this debate even further. Some of the questions
pondered include the following. Does development lead to democracy, or is it the other way
around? What are the institutional mechanisms behind economic performance? Can
democracy enhance development, or are authoritarian governments better equipped for that
task? And is economic development necessary to enable democracies in the developing
world to deepen and become consolidated? I turn to address some of these relationships in
Section III below.

III. Democracy and development: Assessing key (causal) linkages

1) Modernisation theory and the emergence of democracy

During the 1960s and the 1970s, an argument that gained considerable prominence in
mainstream academic and policy circles was that democracy was more likely to emerge in
countries with high(er) levels of socio-economic development (Lipset 1959; Almond and
Verba 1963; Moore 1966). Building on Lipset’s seminal analysis (1959), which stresses at
one point that economic wealth is ‘an initial condition for democracy’ (p. 62), many analysts
and scholars interpreted this correlation as implying that development was a precondition for
democracy. This modernisation approach to democratisation understood the emergence of
democracy as a consequence of the transformation of class structure, the emergence of a

5
A number of authors has criticised the liberal democratic framework for excluding social and economic
aspects of democratisation (Mkandawire, 2001; Sandbrook, 2000). Others have argued that the formal, or
liberal, notion of democracy is too elitist and that aspects of participation are neglected (Pateman 1970;
Chambers 1996).

4
bourgeoisie, economic development, increasing urbanisation, the prior development of
democratic values, and other cultural and religious factors.

Thus, according to this reading, the emergence of democracy is endogenous to the process of
economic and social development—there is a simple, linear progression toward
modernization that ultimately culminates in democratisation. In other words, once a non-
democratic regime acquires a certain level, or ‘threshold,’ of economic development and
social maturation, it will inevitably become a democracy. According to the modernization
approach, then, the appearance of democracy should be seen as the crowning achievement of
a long process of modernization, or as a luxury that affluent countries can (finally) afford.

However, the advent of the so-called Third Wave of democratisation that swept across much
of the developing world beginning in the 1980s challenged this concept of ‘prerequisites’ for
democracy. Many of the movements towards formal democracy since then have taken place
in countries where such transformation would not have been expected based on low levels of
economic development and other socio-economic indicators. As has been amply
documented, a large number of countries experiencing a transition to democracy during the
Third Wave fell in the bottom third of the Human Development Index (Diamond, Przeworski
and Limongi 1997). Third Wave transitions also defied cultural arguments positing that
democracy is incompatible with certain faiths and religious values.6 In addition, many
authoritarian regimes were able to survive even after reaching a considerably high level of
development, so that there does not seem to be a natural progression from authoritarianism
to democracy after reaching some kind of developmental ‘threshold’.

In response to the perceived limitations of modernisation theory, a budding literature has

emerged since the 1980s that seeks to understand democratic transitions from a process-
oriented approach.7 This literature emphasises the importance of decisions, ideas and the
interaction among strategic domestic political actors in bringing about transitions in
‘unlikely places’, while acknowledging the importance of structural factors in shaping actor
choices to varying degrees.8 The focus of this literature is on elite interactions. In some
cases, however, widespread social mobilisation and (the threat of violent) protest from below
were instrumental in bringing about democratic change. This was very visibly the case in
both South Africa and the Philippines, as well as more recently in Ukraine.

Thus, a broad international consensus has emerged that holds that economic development
per se is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the emergence of democracy. On
the other hand, beyond this general agreement about the fact that there are practically no
(structural) preconditions to the emergence of democracy, the nature of the relationship
between democracy and development remains a very hotly contested issue. Some have

6
(Peaceful) transitions to democracy took place in countries evincing every major religious or philosophical
tradition, including Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian and Muslim. The only region that seems
to remain relatively outside this wave of democratisation is the Arab World (Stepan with Roberston 2003).
7
See especially O’Donnell and Schmitter (1986) as one of the founding academic studies of this agency or
process-oriented approach.
8
A fundamental weakness of the earliest studies following a process-oriented approach is that their emphasis
on contingent choice may lead to excessive voluntarism. By understating the role of structural incentives and
constraints in its analysis, this literature tends to assume that actors are freewheeling agents independent of any
political, economic, social and/or historical context. Yet, consideration of such structural determinants is crucial
in explaining individual preferences, relative bargaining power and how interests may change over time. Since
the early 1990s, there has been an attempt to combine structural and agency-related factors in an attempt to
provide a deeper and more balanced understanding of what drives democratic transition processes. Some of the
most notable works using this combined approach include Haggard and Kaufman (1995), Rueschemeyer et al.
(1992), Huntington (1991), and Bratton and van de Walle (1994).

5
argued, for instance, that democracy is in fact an important (pre)requisite for the promotion
of development, while others have maintained, quite on the contrary, that authoritarian
regimes are better suited to that task. I explore each of these arguments in turn below, before
discussing some of the challenges posed by emerging democracies and the insights a new
look at modernization theory may offer.

2) ‘Democracy first’ argument: do all good things go together?

The core of the argument that democracy helps promote development (more than the other
way around) rests on some of the key institutional features of democratic systems – namely
its accountability mechanisms and checks and balances provisions. These features play an
essential role in limiting the abuse of executive and state power more broadly, and through
elections and other processes, they also provide a predictable (in terms of rules, not
outcome), transparent, periodic, and reliable system of rewards and punishments. According
to Sen (1999a), for example, it is these institutional characteristics of a (functioning)
democracy that explain why famines have never occurred in democratic systems. In a
comparative analysis of policy reform in Central Europe after the transition to democracy in
1989, David Stark and László Bruszt also find that ‘[e]xecutives that are held accountable by
other state institutions and held in check by organized societal actors … [produce] … more
effective … [developmental] policies’.

On the other hand, the wave of ‘democratic optimism’ that accompanied this momentous
transformation toward democracy in a vast number of developing countries – what Francis
Fukuyama (1992) enthusiastically described as ‘the end of history’9 – may itself have placed
unusually high expectations about what these newly emerging democratic systems could and
should accomplish. Turning many of the more traditional assumptions embedded in
modernisation theory on its head, a new orthodoxy emerged within the international
community (especially among donors) beginning in the 1990s that held that democracy is
not an outcome or consequence of development, but rather a necessary ingredient to bring
about development (see, for example UN-OHRLLS and UNDP 2006; Leftwich 2000).

This is the thinking underpinning much of the ‘good governance’ agenda promoted by the
international community (especially multilateral and bilateral donors). This donor agenda is
fundamentally concerned about the rules and practices according to which governments are
chosen and state power and authority are exercised (Kjaer, 2004). Although democracy as
such is not always explicitly spelled out as an element of internationally-supported good
governance efforts,10 there is a clear normative commitment to democratic politics embodied
in the good governance agenda. Among other things, good governance emphasizes the
importance of transparency and (both horizontal and vertical) accountability, and it also calls
for broadly inclusive and participatory decision-making processes as an essential condition
to the effective promotion of development. Cleary, as noted towards the end of Section II.2,
the discussion about participatory and inclusive forms of governance is not only part of a
donor-led agenda and on the contrary enjoys a long intellectual history – the point here is to
highlight how donors have embraced the concept of participation in their work, at least in
principle. PRSPs provide such an example, though they have been heavily criticised for
being donor-imposed and for promoting pro forma rather than substantive citizen/social
participation (see Rocha Menocal and Rogerson 2006).

9
Referring in particular to the global triumph of democracy and capitalism around the world.
10
The World Bank’s Articles of Agreement, for example, formally prohibit it from getting in the internal
politics of its members.

6
There are several advantages to an open, democratic, and participatory process to policy-
making from a good governance perspective – even if this implies that decision-making
processes are more protracted and less ‘efficient’ in the short term. Following Sáez (2005),
they can be summarised as follows:

In the first place, [participation] allows for the creation of alliances of various
interests in favour of set objectives. Second, it creates a sense of ownership of
adopted decisions, even if they oppose certain interests defended by them. Third,
it contributes to sustainability of policies over time: it reduces the chances of
backlash if participation is solid and decisions taken are considered legitimate in
their origin and outcome. Fourth, participation … fosters … more informed
decisions. Lastly, participation permits society to demand more accountability of
those in charge of public policies.

However, the good governance agenda tends to espouse a view of politics which may be
overly naïve and idealistic, and it can impose demands with regard to the quality of
governance which are far beyond what is needed (or even possible) at (very) low levels of
development (Khan 2005). It also tends to assume too easily that ‘all good things go
together’ (Fritz and Rocha Menocal 2007) and that democracies will lead to policies
favouring redistribution. However, in many developing countries, democratisation has not
been associated with (much) redistribution (Gradstein and Milanovic 2004; Chong 2004).

As Bardhan (nd) has warned, democratic decision-making processes are not always ‘pretty’
from a developmental perspective, and they do not necessarily lead to the enactment of
policies that are (more) conducive to development. The fact that decision-making processes
are intended to be more participatory and inclusive does not automatically make them
developmentally more effective. Indeed, greater access to the state also means that the
bureaucracy can more easily politicised. As Bardhan has put it, among other things ‘[n]ot all
cases of public pressure that democracy facilitates help development… Democracies may be
particularly susceptible to populist pressures … and other particularistic demands that may
hamper long-run investment[,] growth [and development more broadly’. Kurt Weyland’s
(1996) analysis of the striking failure of the first three democratically elected governments in
Brazil to enact badly needed redistribution reforms provides a particularly stark example of
just how poor the developmental outcomes of a democracy characterised by too much
fragmentation and too many competing interests can be.

3) ‘Development first’ argument: do the ends justify the means?

It is in fact this natural tendency of a democratic system to fragment, diffuse, and divide
power among many different stakeholders at many different levels, both within the state and
among societal actors (Dahl 1971), thereby making decision-making processes more time-
consuming, that has led many other analysts in academic and policy circles alike to argue
that, in the developing world, authoritarian regimes may be better suited than democratic
ones to promote economic development. As Halperin et al. have noted, ‘the appeal of the
authoritarian-led approach has … at least something to do with its expediency, in
comparison to the messy and time-consuming procedures typical of democracy’. The core of
this argument is that development requires a strong, centralised, highly autonomous
government, especially when poor countries need to play ‘catch-up’, and that democratic
politics are simply too messy and unpredictable to provide such a structure.11 In an

11
In a seminal 1968 work on Political Order in Changing Societies, Samuel Huntington argued among other
things that, as a result of economic development, political mobilization will increase faster than the appropriate
institutions can arise, thus leading to instability. As a solution he advocated the merits of a strong one-party

7
authoritarian system, state actors are also supposed to enjoy much longer time-horizons since
they do not need to worry about the short-term politicking that arises from electoral cycles
(Halperin et al. 2005).

Much of the empirical evidence sustaining the thesis that authoritarian regimes are in general
more effective than democratic ones in promoting rapid development comes from the so-
called East Asian Tigers (Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore), where the state in
each case oversaw and led a process of rapid economic growth and radical socio-economic
transformation from the 1960s to the 1990s. More recently, China and Vietnam have also
been used as important showcases in favour of this argument. As many analysts have
suggested (Evans 1995; Haggard 1990), the secret of these (East) Asian developmental states
lies in what Peter Evans has described as their ‘embedded autonomy’, or their institutional
capacity/autonomy to promote developmental goals without being ‘captured’ by
particularistic interests while remaining ‘embedded’ in society through a concrete set of
social ties that binds the state to society and provides institutionalised channels for the
continual negotiation and renegotiation of goals and policies’ (Evans 1995). However, as
reflected by these (East) Asian experiences, embedded autonomy can be a highly
exclusionary arrangement, where the state is linked not to society at large, but to dominant
groups within it, especially among the industrial class (Rocha Menocal 2004).

Importantly, Evans himself does not explicitly argue that developmental states need to be
authoritarian to be successful, and in fact he analyses the cases of India and (post-transition)
Brazil as examples where partial developmental success has been achieved in some ‘islands
of excellence’ despite being surrounded by a sea of widespread incompetence. However,
Evans tends to skirt the issue of regime type altogether, so that one is left wondering if
democratic politics somehow constrain the developmental state or impinge upon its actions
(Rocha Menocal 2004).12 As Ronald Herring (1999) has argued in the case of India, that
country has faced ‘terrific obstacles…in managing…[its] political economy…with one arm
tied behind its back by its commitment to liberal democracy’.

Adrian Leftwich (1995) has been much more explicit about the kind of political system that
may be required to sustain a developmental state. As he has argued, when and if
developmental states are democratic, they can be thought of as ‘authoritarian democracies’
(like Botswana), where basic characteristics of a democracy exist, such as free and fair
elections, but where human rights are less of a priority and some stability is brought about by
one party rule and strong control exerted by bureaucracies. Leftwich has also suggested that
it is unrealistic to assume that political and economic development goals (alongside equity,
stability and national autonomy) can be achieved simultaneously, at least from past historical
experience. In his view, ‘dominant-party democratic developmental states hold out some
prospect for at least achieving respectful levels of growth and the distribution of its benefits
that will make a real difference to the majority of the population under essentially
democratic conditions’. Fareed Zakaria (2003) has made a very similar point. In his book
The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad, he argues that the goal
should be to support ‘liberal autocracies’, given that authoritarian regimes seem to have a

state. In his view, order itself was the most important goal of developing societies, independent of the question
of whether that order was democratic or not.
12
All that Evans says on this matter is that, by its very success, the developmental state may, in the end, be its
very own ‘gravedigger’: having successfully nurtured strong business and working classes through its policies,
these then turn upon the state to demand greater political freedoms and, ultimately, democracy (which is a
variant of the modernization argument). The trouble is, of course, that, in much of the developing world,
democracy has been established without the prior achievement of such developmental success.

8
superior developmental record and the Przeworski et al. finding that democracies seem to
become stable once they manage to surpass a certain level of economic development.

On the other hand, it is not self-evident that an authoritarian ruler will always be interested in
playing a positive role in the developmental process. Quite on the contrary, historical
examples of ‘anti’-developmental or non-developmental authoritarian states in Africa, Latin
America, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union have been abundant (Bardhan nd;
Bates 1981; Evans 1995). In fact, one of the critiques to the ‘development first, democracy
second’ school of thought is that it relies on empirical evidence that is extremely limited and
highly selective (Sen 1999, Halperin et al. 2005). In a sense, then, betting on the greater
developmental efficiency of such regimes implies a rather dangerous wager – and it cannot
be ascertained a priori that the ends will justify the means.

In addition, an argument can also be made that in many authoritarian states, insulated,
centralised, and highly autonomous decision-making processes have played a major role in
the triggering and/or deepening of serious economic crises, and that such crises would have
been either less profound or even avoidable had effective democratic mechanisms to keep
executive power under check been in place. This certainly seems to have been the case of the
Mexico peso crisis of 1994, which triggered one of the deepest crises the country had ever
experienced and also spread throughout the region (Rocha Menocal 1998). According to Sen
(1999), the absence of an effective ‘democratic forum’, which among other things resulted in
poor accountability and transparency mechanisms, was also central to the Asian economic
crisis of the late 1990s. Thus, while more open, inclusive and participatory decision-making
processes can be problematic in some respects (as highlighted in the discussion above), they
also contain essential institutional features to keep power holders under check, to promote
greater accountability, and, crucially, to help correct policy decisions as may be necessary.

4) Challenges posed by emerging democracies: towards a new consensus on a fresher look

at modernisation theory?13

As has been highlighted above, the advent of the Third Wave of democratisation throughout
the developing world (reaching many low income countries as well), confirms the thinking
that there are no structural preconditions for the emergence of democracy. On the other hand,
only a limited number of countries that have undergone transitions to democracy have
succeeded in establishing consolidated and functioning democratic regimes. Against this
backdrop, many analysts seem to be reaching a consensus that structural factors – such as
underlying economic, social, and institutional conditions and legacies – may in fact have a
considerable impact on the prospects of democratic consolidation. It is telling that, with only
very few exceptions (most notably India and Costa Rica), all democracies that can be
considered fully consolidated are wealthy. Lipset’s (1959) dictum four decades ago that ‘the
more well-to-do a nation, the greater the chances that it will sustain a democracy’, has
withstood the test of time.

In fact, revisiting his ‘prerequisites’ argument in 1994, Lipset has proposed that, while
higher levels of income may not be a precondition for democratisation processes to start,
they may be nonetheless advantageous for democracy to endure and become consolidated.
In a much discussed quantitative analysis, Przeworski and Limongi (1997) also find that
economic development has a very important impact on the sustainability of democratic
systems. Looking at cross-regional data from 1950 to 1990 on a wide variety of well-

13
This issue is addressed in further detail in the Background Note on ‘Hybrid Regimes’ that has also been
prepared for this Conference.

9
performing and poor-performing democracies, the authors find that the less successful
democratic regimes are in generating economic growth, the more likely they are to break
down.14

The fact that, contrary to what Przeworski and Limongi (1997) would have predicted, there
have been few full-fledged, formal reversals to authoritarianism even among the poorest
countries may offer some solace. This may be due in part to the fact that, given the current
international discourse in favour of democracy (at least formally), outright authoritarian
‘solutions’ to domestic problems are a lot less likely to be tolerated.15 Interestingly, some of
the relatively most successful examples of recently democratising countries in Sub-Saharan
Africa are also among the poorest (in particular Benin, Ghana, and Mali).16 However, it
remains true that democracies that have failed to produce developmental outcomes remain
much more fragile and unstable. Expectations for these incipient democracies to deliver tend
to be rather high and unrealistic, which adds to the considerable strain they are often under –
especially because commitment to them remains instrumental rather than principled.17 Many
of the elections that took place in Latin America in 2006 reflected this growing
disillusionment with (incomplete) democracy and pointed to the resurgence of populist
candidates in the region (Rocha Menocal, 2006).

But so what happens at higher levels of wealth that makes democracies so sturdy?
Unfortunately, Przeworski and Limongi (1997) do not provide much in the form of causal
mechanisms: describing the stability of democracy at high levels of development as ‘a
miracle’ hardly helps provide an understanding of the processes that may be at work
sustaining that relationship.

Above all, democratic consolidation requires the evolution of a democratic political culture
where all the main political players (both in the elite and the mass public), parties, organised
interests, forces and institutions view and accept democracy as ‘the only game in town’. In
other words, the democratic process is the only legitimate means to gain power and to
channel/process demands. Admittedly, the building and strengthening of such a democratic
political culture is bound to take a long time, and this is the main challenge hybrid regimes
are facing today.

In fact, it is in establishing the causal connections between development and the

maintenance/consolidation of democracy that some of the insights of modernisation theory
may prove to be most useful. In essence, modernisation theory posits that high levels of
economic development contribute to the stability of a democracy once it has been

14
The fact that, contrary to what Przeworski and Limongi would have predicted, there have been few full-
fledged, formal reversals to authoritarianism even among the poorest countries may offer some solace. This
may be due in part to the fact that, given the current international discourse in favour of democracy (at least
formally), outright authoritarian ‘solutions’ to domestic problems are a lot less likely to be tolerated. But it
remains true in any case that democracies that have failed to produce developmental outcomes remain much
more fragile and unstable – essentially because commitment to them is instrumental rather than principled.
15
This is why many regimes are happy to go along paying lip service to democracy while still exerting
authoritarian control. Nevertheless, the international community has turned a blind eye to formal authoritarian
reversals in Bangladesh and Pakistan, perhaps because these countries are of strategic importance to other
foreign policy, military, and other interests.
16
Per capita incomes for these three countries for 2001 – so roughly a decade into democratisation – were
US$330, US$290, and US$220; which is (even) below the low income country average of US$390 for that
year.
17
Conversely, it is possible to assume that, so long as China prospers and continues to reduce the numbers
living in absolute poverty there will be little prospects of fundamental political change towards greater liberal
democracy.

10
established because it attenuates polarization by tempering class struggle and fostering the
moderation of political conflict. As increased levels of development reduce the levels of
objective inequalities, distributional conflicts become significantly less accentuated and
more gradualist views of politics develop among the population at large. The promotion of a
more tolerant and moderate political culture is also facilitated by increased educational
opportunities, themselves the product of modernisation. In addition, economic development
also fosters the growth of civil society—of ‘intermediary organizations which act as sources
of countervailing power’ (Lipset 1959)—by fostering the (material) opportunities to create
and participate in such voluntary organizations.

This discussion on the links between development and the consolidation of democracy is in
no way intended to suggest that all wealthy democracies have reached a stage of ‘perfection’
and that there is a linear trajectory toward that end point (again, as highlighted in Section
III.2, there is no ‘end of history’ here). In fact, as several analysts have pointed out, wealthy
(and mostly Western) democracies can also suffer from serious democratic deficits,
manifested, among other things, in low levels of voter turn-out, the decline of
associationalism, and sectors of the population that are less than tolerant (e.g. Putnam 2000).
In the main, however, in all these established, consolidated, and, as it happens, mostly
wealthy democracies, a majority of the actors/stakeholders subscribes to Przeworski’s (1991)
definition of democracy as ‘institutionalised uncertainty’: in a democracy, all outcomes are
in principle unknown and are open to contest among key players (e.g. who will win an
electoral contest, what policies will be enacted, etc.) – the only certainty is that such
outcomes will be determined within the framework of pre-established democratic rules.

Some analysts have also argued that it may not be high levels of development as such, but
rather the way in which this wealth is distributed among the population, that is responsible
for fostering the appropriate conditions for democratic stability and consolidation.
Democracy is more easily maintained when wealth is distributed in a more or less equitable
manner across society, because it is precisely a more even distribution that prevents class
polarization and fosters moderation. Hence, appropriate social and institutional mechanisms
need to be established to ensure adequate distribution. In the words of Larry Diamond
(1992), ‘to the extent that [the] benefits…of economic development…are grossly
maldistributed…it may do little to promote democracy’. The crisis that democracy in
Venezuela is currently undergoing and the appeal that the country’s president Hugo Chávez
appears to have among many of the most marginalized sectors of the population certainly
seems to confirm this reading. On the other hand, democracy has been able to survive (if not
exactly thrive) in very unequal settings like Botswana, Brazil, India, and South Africa. This
suggests that there is a need for further research and analysis on the links between
democracy, development, and inequality.

IV. Whereto from here?

1) Democracy and development: inconclusive findings

As can be discerned from the discussion above, there are several different arguments that can
be harnessed to support both the view that democratic institutions play a crucial role in
promoting development and the counter-view that authoritarian regimes may be more
effective in this endeavour, especially in poor countries that need to catch up more rapidly.
The terms of the debate are far from settled. The existing literature seeking to identify the
causal relationship between democracy and development (and the direction of this
relationship) remains inconclusive, suggesting just how complex and non-linear the linkages
between these two forces are. For every study providing evidence for the argument that

11
either a democratic or an authoritarian regime is more conducive to (if not a precondition
for) development, another one can be found that makes the opposite claim.

For example, in their book The Democracy Advantage: How Democracies Promote
Prosperity and Peace, Joseph Halperin et al. (2005) make a strong case for the
developmental benefit of participatory and accountable systems of governance over time, as
compared to authoritarian regimes, arguing that the better performance of democracies can
be attributed to their relatively greater propensity for establishing institutions of shared
power, information openness, and adaptability. The authors find that low-income
democracies outperform autocracies across a wide range of development indicators. They
show, for example, that democracies have experience more stable and steady growth patterns
than autocracies over time.18 In addition, low-income democracies have superior levels of
social welfare across various measures of development progress. The positive democracy-
development examples are broad and do not rely on one group of ‘super performers’ such as
the East Asian tigers in the authoritarian-development model (see discussion in section
below), which according to Halperin et al. skews the data on low-income authoritarian states.
But presumably taking the East Asian tigers out as the authors do when looking at
authoritarian regimes itself distorts the data they present. To be more convincing, the
developmental model for the authoritarian regimes should have included the ‘tigers’ and
their subsequent failures/difficulties once the Asian Crisis set in. In addition, the data on
social indicators that the authors provide to prove that democracies have performed better
over time appear a bit forced at times and does not seem that obvious or straightforward. It
seems that Halperin et al. had to make considerable caveats to make their argument work.

In Democracy, Governance, and Economic Performance: Theory and Evidence, Yi Feng

(2003) also finds that democracy has a positive impact on economic and social development,
though mostly through indirect channels. The channels the author describes include policy
certainty, political stability, the establishment and enforcement of rules that protect property
rights, the promotion of education, the ability to promote private capital, and the reduction of
inequality. A democratic regime is seen as vital in bringing about these indirect benefits
because it is a system that provides for regular government change while inhibiting
irregular/erratic/unconstitutional change. Yet, as the discussion on the ‘development first’
school above suggests and as many analysts have also shown (Leftwich 2005, Zakaria 2003,
Haggard 1990), these indirect benefits are not the exclusive domain of democracies: (some)
authoritarian regimes also seem quite capable of providing stability, the rule of law, the
protection of property rights, and basic social services

In fact, in an ambitious and controversial study looking at the causal relationship between
democracy and development and the direction of this causal relationship in 135 countries
(including established democracies and democratising countries) between 1950 and 1990,
Adam Przeworski and his collaborators (2000) find that, while political institutions do
matter, regime type as such has no significant influence on states’ economic growth and
national income. According to the authors, whether democracy fosters or hinders
development remains an open question, and the results of the relationship between regime
type and economic development are inconclusive. The main lesson from their analysis may
be that different political regimes may be capable of implementing similar policies, and that
it may therefore be more fruitful to look at the kinds of institutional arrangements that are in

18
According to the authors, only 5 of the 20 worst performers (from 1960-2000) were democracies, and the
probability of them experiencing economic disaster (defined as 10% decline in annual per capita GDP) is less
than 1% compared with 3.4% for any country (p. 33).

12
place (e.g. two-party vs. multiparty systems) and government development strategies, rather
than at the kind of political regime per se.

2) The case for democracy

Thus, as Sen (1999) has put it, ‘[i]f all the comparative studies are viewed together, the
hypothesis that there is no clear relationship between economic development and democracy
in either direction remains extremely plausible’. And the same can be said about the
inconclusive evidence of authoritarian systems in promoting economic development. If in
addition to this mixed track record, which points to the complex and non-linear relationship
between democracy and development, one takes into account the formidable shift to (formal)
democracy that has taken place in (some very poor) countries throughout the developing
world, then the case for democracy as a system that has intrinsic value in and of itself is a
very powerful one. This also speaks of the need to support these emerging democracies,
which (as highlighted above as well as in the Background Note on Hybrid Regimes) remain
weak and unconsolidated, while tempering expectations about what these democracies can
be reasonably expected to accomplish in terms of development, especially in the short term.

3) Bringing the state back in

How the international community can best support these unconsolidated democracies or
hybrid regimes remains, of course a central challenge. In a recent contribution to the ongoing
debate on the relationship between democracy and development, Leftwich (2005) revisits
this relationship from a more nuanced and thought-provoking perspective. He argues that,
while democracy and development have become the two central goals of Western
governments and development agencies in the developing world, it is essential to recognise
that these two processes may not always go hand in hand in a mutually reinforcing manner,
and they may in fact pull in opposite directions. Moreover, both democracy and development
need a strong state (understood here following Chesterman et al. [2005] as ‘a network of
authoritative institutions that make and enforce top-level decisions throughout a territorially
defined political entity’) to underpin them and enable them to thrive.

This was one of the major insights of Evans’ work (1995) cited above on the state and
development (while, once again, his focus was not on regime type itself). Since the end of
the 1990s, there has also been a growing awareness within the international community that
state institutions matter and that the orientation and effectiveness of the state is the critical
variable explaining why some countries succeed whereas others fail in meeting development
goals (Fritz and Rocha Menocal 2006). However, current thinking and international
discussions on democratisation in the developing world seem to be based on the assumption
that today’s emerging democracies are being built on the foundations of coherent,
functioning states (for a critical reflection on this, see Fukuyama 2005). Most of the
literature presupposes that a more or less effective state exists before a democratisation
process starts (Linz and Stepan 1996).

But in reality, many of the countries stuck in incomplete democratisation processes,

especially poor ones, are not only trying to democratise but also more fundamentally to build
effective, capable states. Poor state capacity and inadequate provision of social services
mean, furthermore, that human development is low, especially in the poorest countries. This
combination of low state capacity and low human development implies that poor countries
pose novel challenges for external democracy promotion and protection – ranging from
options for party financing and organisation, to political and civic culture, to the types of
social structures prevalent in situations of widespread poverty, which are mostly patronage-
driven. Importantly, the questions to be asked should not only be how these conditions affect

13
the prospects for democratisation and democratic consolidation, but also how efforts to
establish and strengthen democratic systems affect state capacity, service delivery, and other
dimensions of governance, such as corruption.

In an argument that echoes Leftwich’s (2005) point about the tensions embedded between
democracy and development, Thomas Carothers (2002) has posited that, to the extent that
international democracy assistance has considered the possibility of state-building as part of
the democratisation process, it has too easily assumed that the fostering of democracy and
state-building are one and the same thing. However, the conflation of these two processes is
at best problematic.19 As Leftwich found to be true for democracy and development, the
relationship between democratisation and the building of effective and capable state
institutions can sometimes be complex. To some degree, these two processes also tend to
pull in opposite directions. For instance, democratisation often entails establishing checks
and balances mechanisms and diffusing power more evenly across a greater number of
actors both within and outside government, while strengthening state capacity may call for
greater autonomy and centralisation of power.

Some of the recent literature has begun to further explore the effects of democratisation on
other development goals, such as growth, poverty and inequality, and corruption, and such
analyses have concluded that positive spill-over effects from democratisation for other areas
of governance and development are not automatic. Sometimes the impact may even be
negative, as in the case of corruption.20 If the literature is right about potentially negative
effects; and about the fact that democratisation does not automatically yield benefits for
equity or state capacity, then such tensions need to receive far greater attention as the
international community thinks about policy and practice. One of the central challenges for
donors therefore remains to become more fully aware of the fact that, when they make
choices about how to support democracy and how to promote development, they also need to
take into consideration how their activities in one realm affect the other – and how these in
turn affect (or be impacted by) broader state-building efforts that may or may not work
holistically with democratisation efforts on the one hand and development efforts on the
other.

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